


So I'll Go

by zahnie



Category: Leverage
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Major Character Injury, Multi, Nightmares, POV Outsider, just one scene of that though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zahnie/pseuds/zahnie
Summary: Eliot's nightmares and insomnia are worse than usual, and after a job goes poorly, he decides his boyfriend and girlfriend would be happier without him. They disagree.





	So I'll Go

**Author's Note:**

> Songs are my most constant source of ficspiration, so it's not really a surprise that when I listened to 'Happier' a few months ago, I was like 'wow what an Eliot song'.
> 
> Set post-canon. This is my first fic with Chaos in it (and I spelled it as 'Cha0s' because he just strikes me as the l33t sp34k type, y'know? Sorry if that's jarring for you: apparently the official spelling is as plain 'Chaos' but it's my fanfic and I do what I want)
> 
> The nightmares are all memories of Eliot's so warnings there for violence/bombing/burning/imprisonment/involuntary drugging. They're super brief, if that helps.
> 
> Huge thank-yous to greenmonstermash for amazing brainstorming and excitement, both irl and online :D
> 
> Title from [Happier by Marshmello f. Bastille](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE87rQkXdNw)
> 
> Fic playlist [here](https://zahnie.tumblr.com/post/184730417830/so-ill-go-playlist) and feel free to come say hi to me on Tumblr :D

Eliot sighs and closes his eyes. He consciously tenses then relaxes his body, section by section. He listens to his partners breathing beside him. They've both been asleep for hours.

He stares at the dark ceiling. The glow-in-the-dark stars are only faint outlines now. They've spent all the light they gathered all day. Eliot can relate. He is exhausted.

Insomnia is nothing new. He's dealt with it for years. It's the dreams that are running him ragged right now.

In the end, he puts himself to sleep composing recipes.

_He can smell meat cooking. It smells so good. But when he looks around, he isn't in a kitchen, he's in Myanmar and there's fire from the bombing and screaming which means the meat smell is..._

Eliot lunges out of bed, retching. He makes it to the bedroom garbage can before throwing up. At least the smell of vomit wipes out the lingering memory of burning human flesh.

“Eliot?” Parker calls from the bed.

“Sorry,” he gasps. He takes the garbage can to the bathroom and throws up some more. After rinsing his mouth, Eliot decides he might as well clean the whole bathroom too.

Halfway through, Hardison comes in. “You okay, baby?” he asks sleepily.

“Sorry,” Eliot says again.

Hardison opens his arms and Eliot steps into the hug automatically. He can feel himself relax, the last of the nightmare terror falling away.

“Coming back to bed?” Hardison asks.

Eliot pulls back and Hardison lets him. “No, go ahead,” he says.

Hardison yawns and nods.

About fifteen minutes later, when Eliot is cleaning the mirror and wincing at his reflection, Parker pokes her head around the door.

“Come on,” she says, taking the cloth out of his hand and leading him into the kitchen. She seats him at the table in front of a mug. He tastes it gingerly. It's what he makes when he's recovering from fights: ginger mint green tea.

He looks up but Parker's gone. A moment later, she reappears and tucks a blanket around his shoulders.

“Thanks,” Eliot says.

“Drink it,” Parker says. She hesitates, then kisses his forehead and leaves.

He does drink all the tea. The warmth is comforting and the flavour is familiar. He can pretend this is something he's going to get better from, like a cracked rib or broken finger.

By the time the sun comes up, he feels almost normal.

~

Parker wakes up to breakfast smells. She nudges Hardison. He grunts and doesn't move.

“It's morning,” Parker says, nudging him again.

“Already?” Hardison mumbles.

“Eliot's cooking,” Parker says. He doesn't make food in the middle of the night unless they ask him to.

Hardison rolls over toward her. “Did he...?” He doesn't finish the question.

“No,” Parker says. Eliot didn't come back to bed. She would have heard him. They've worked out how to be the right kind of noise around each other at night. It took some practice.

Hardison sighs.

“Get up,” Parker says. She climbs over him to make her point. When she's at the bedroom door and looks back, Hardison is sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face.

“I'm up,” he says without looking at her.

Parker grins. She can still startle Hardison by mistake but he's getting better at knowing when she's around.

They wander into the kitchen together.

“Oh cool, pancakes,” Hardison says.

“Crepes,” Eliot corrects him, flipping the one in the pan.

“So, like thin pancakes,” Hardison says, grinning.

Parker tries to reach past Eliot into the pan to taste some batter but he moves it out of the way. “It's hot,” he says. “Just wait.”

She's going to try again but Eliot looks so tired that Parker decides to let him win. She leans on his back instead, watching the cooking over his shoulder.

Usually, Eliot would make her stand back but today, she can feel him relax a little. She leans a bit harder, putting more of her weight on him.

Hardison cuts up some more of the waiting fruit. Eliot notices and says, “Good technique.”

“I learn from the best,” Hardison says.

Eliot huffs a laugh and pours more batter into the pan.

When they all sit down to eat, Parker takes a big bite of her crepe. It tastes even better than it smelled.

“It tastes like apologizing,” she says.

Hardison and Eliot both glance up at her at the same time, making confused faces. “And like you love us,” Parker adds. It's true. All of Eliot's food tastes like he loves them now.

“Good,” Eliot says.

~

After breakfast, Hardison offers to do the dishes. Parker starts laying blueprints out on the table and scribbling in her planning notebook. Eliot is restless so he gets changed to go for a run.

The sky is overcast, the sun barely visible behind the cloud cover. It smells like rain coming. He finds the rhythm slowly today. It's like meditation when he gets it right: his whole body moving like he was made for this. But it's harder to find when he's tired.

Eliot doesn't know why the nightmares are worse right now. It seems like everything in his life is normal. There haven't been any threats, nothing big on the horizon, no anniversaries even. It's just every time he closes his eyes, some bad memory hits him. And Eliot has a lot of bad to choose from.

What would it be like not to remember everything he's ever done? Dangerous.

He runs further than he means to, chasing the peace he can sometimes find in motion. It's more than two hours before he gets back home.

Hardison and Parker aren't there. Eliot finds the phone he forgot to bring with him on one of the nightstands. The text from Parker says, _lunch? emilios 1330_

It's only a few minutes after noon now so he texts back, _Sounds good._

He showers for a blissfully long time, the water just a little too hot so it will make his muscles relax. The bathroom is full of steam when he's done, even with the fan on.

After he's dressed, Eliot sits down on the couch for just a minute.

_Closed in, dirt wall behind his back, the heat of the day making him sweat. He can't move. Out of the choking darkness, the screaming starts._

Eliot wakes up already standing, braced for an attack. His heart is pounding. The screaming he thought he heard is a siren. Fire truck, now heading away and growing fainter. He exhales heavily, realizing he was holding his breath.

“Dammit,” he says softly to himself. Moving before he's awake is... not a good sign. He has to get his shit together or it won't be safe for him to sleep near Hardison and Parker tonight.

More time has passed than he thought and he's almost late for the lunch date.

~

_The next day_

Alec adjusts his lab coat. “How do I look?” he asks Parker.

She turns around to peer at him from the driver's seat of Lucille. “Good,” she says.

“Okay, the thieves have put out all their fake 'closed for maintenance' signs,” Eliot says over the comms.

Parker sighs. “I want to be the thieves.”

“You don't even like roses,” Alec says, putting on his fake glasses.

“Plants are a huge pain to fence,” Parker agrees, “Even the super valuable ones.”

“See? We'll have more fun stopping them than stealing the roses ourselves,” Alec says.

He opens the back of Lucille and steps down to the road. When he rounds the corner of the van, he can see the university's rose garden spread out over the lawn. It's mostly small bushes, though there are trellises covered in plants arching over the paths as well.

Alec can't see the thieves themselves yet but their sign is clearly visible at the beginning of the rose garden path, right beside the introduction plaque. It isn't really a public park so the university can theoretically close it to visitors whenever they want to.

Eliot is off to the left in a groundskeeper uniform, picking up garbage with a stick.

“And we can go steal something shiny later,” Alec hears Parker say through the comms.

Alec expects Eliot to respond to that but he doesn't. Last night, Eliot didn't come to bed at all. He said he slept on the couch but Alec doesn't believe him. He's been sleeping even less than usual lately. Alec is trying not to worry about it. If there was anything he or Parker could do, Eliot would tell them, wouldn't he?

He turns on the camera in his glasses and enters the rose garden. This is almost a recon mission, really. They can use video of the rose thieves to identify them. Or use as proof later, if they have to. Alec's on point, Eliot is backup, and Parker is the getaway driver. It's probably overkill to have the three of them on this but Alec is hoping there's time later for a romantic-ish walk in the garden. After all, the thieves have made sure it's empty.

He turns a corner on the path and spots three white guys with shovels. “Hey!” Alec calls, rushing closer.

They all look up at him, startled.

“What in the world are you doing?” Alec cries, all fake indignation. But then, he notices the wrapped bundle on the ground. Definitely too big to be a rose bush. What _are_ they doing?

“Garden's closed,” one of the guys says.

There is something sticking out of one end of the bundle. Alec touches his glasses to zoom in. It's... hair. A clump of blonde human hair.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Alec breathes. They aren't here to steal roses. They're here to bury a body.

“What's wrong?” Parker asks over the comms, voice sharp.

“Dead body,” Alec subvocalizes. He starts backing away.

“Get him!” one of the guys shouts, and the other two rush towards Alec.

“Eliot!” he yells.

~

He's running, his legs slow and wobbly. It feels like trying to run in a dream.

“Eliot!” Hardison shouts again, and he can hear him ahead as well as in his earbud.

He bodyslams the first guy, barely feeling the impact, knocking him away from Hardison. Usually, Eliot goes crystal clear in a fight. Not today. Everything is clouded, muffled.

The worst part is, he _saw_ the murderers bringing the body in. Just a glimpse but that should have been enough for him to recognize that's what it was.

Something hits him _hard_ on his right side, hard enough to break through the fog. Eliot cries out. He stumbles. The next blow almost misses, glancing off the same spot on Eliot's ribs. Grabbing blindly, his hand closes around the handle of a shovel. He rips it out of the second guy's hands, twirls it in his fingers, and hits him over the head with his own improvised weapon.

Dropping the shovel, Eliot rushes the third guy, who's too close to Hardison. The guy gets in a weak blow to Eliot's shoulder but falls as his legs are kicked out from under him. Eliot kicks him again, in the head this time, to keep him on the ground.

The first guy is crawling toward the other shovels so Eliot knocks him out too, not gently.

Hardison is curled up on the ground, gasping. When Eliot bends over him, he can see blood welling out between Hardison's fingers where he's clutching his stomach. One of the guy must have had a knife or something else sharp.

Hardison grabs Eliot's shirt collar with a bloody hand. “ _Fuck_ , it hurts,” he pants.

This isn't supposed to happen. Eliot's supposed to be fast enough, _good_ enough, to keep this from happening. He stares at the wound, frozen.

It's only when the van crashes through the rose trellis across the clearing from them that Eliot realizes Parker has been yelling in his ear the whole time. She lunges out of the driver's seat like an extension of the crash. “Alec! Eliot!” she shouts.

“Alec's hurt,” Eliot says.

“He definitely is,” Hardison groans.

Parker blanches at the blood on Hardison's shirt. “Keep pressure there,” she tells Hardison. To Eliot, she says, “I'll help you lift him.”

~

Much later, in the waiting room of the nearest hospital, Parker stands still, staring straight ahead. Eliot almost reaches out to touch her but he thinks better of it.

“I was too slow,” Eliot chokes out. He tries to go on, tries to apologize. The words are locked up inside him.

Parker whirls around, eyes blazing. “Why didn't you tell me you couldn't do it?” Her anger cuts him to the bone.

Eliot swallows hard but he still can't speak. It doesn't matter because Parker is already stalking down the hall to Hardison's hospital room.

She's right, he should have said no to that job. If Eliot can't protect them, he has no place in their lives. He sways a little on his feet.

He's a burden to them. They deserve better. He hasn't been at a hundred percent for a while now. It's crazy that it took Hardison getting hurt for Eliot to see that they'd be better off without him. If he wasn't so selfish, he would have left already.

Eliot stumbles down the hall after Parker. He has to see Hardison. It's harder to breathe than it should be. Cracked ribs maybe? He feels a little trickle running down his back from his shoulder, where the blood is still wet. That knife may have caught him there.

He stops in the doorway of Hardison's hospital room. Parker is leaning over Hardison.

“I won't be running around anytime soon but they say I don't need surgery,” he hears Hardison say.

“How many stitches?” Parker asks. Eliot can see her whole body is tense.

“Fourteen. I was lucky, they said.” Hardison glances over at Eliot and smiles sleepily. “Hey baby. Is that my blood on you?”

Parker looks over at him too. He can't read her expression.

Eliot nods. Some of the blood is Hardison's. Parker has some on her too.

“I'm gonna just take a quick nap and then we can go home,” Hardison says, closing his eyes.

After a few minutes where neither of them move, Parker crosses the room to Eliot. She stops in front of him.

“Hardison's going to be okay. You saved him,” she says.

Eliot can't hold back a gasp as Parker wraps her arms around him. Definitely cracked ribs. He hugs her back anyway. This might be the last time.

“Are you okay?” Parker asks as she pulls back.

“Yeah,” Eliot breathes. His chest feels like it's on fire. He suppresses a cough.

She narrows her eyes at him a little but turns away, letting him off the hook.

~

They take Hardison home from the hospital a few hours later. Both Parker and Eliot help him walk from the van.

Once Hardison's settled in bed, still sleepy from the pain medication the hospital gave him, and Parker and Eliot are in the kitchen, she says, “Take off your shirt.”

He blinks at her like he doesn't understand. She should ask Hardison later if Eliot got hit in the head during the fight.

“You're hurt,” she says, pointing to his shoulder.

“It's nothing,” Eliot says. Something's wrong. He should be growling but his voice is just flat.

Parker glares at him. He starts pulling off his shirt and winces. He twists a little, like he's trying to hide it from her, but that makes it worse probably because he gasps and stops. She sees it anyway. There's a huge bruise forming on the right side of Eliot's ribs.

Instinctively, Parker wants to poke it. She holds back. Her apology hug might have hurt him already. “Sit down,” she says, pushing a stool out for him with her foot.

Eliot sits down carefully. Parker fetches the first aid kit from the bathroom. The bruise on his ribs doesn't have any broken skin but the cut on his shoulder might need stitches. “Hold still and I'll clean that,” she says.

He flinches when she swabs the wound with disinfectant. It isn't as bad as it looked so Parker tapes a cotton pad down over it and wraps a bandage around it. Eliot showed her before how to bandage a shoulder so he can still use it.

“Tell me if it's too tight,” Parker says, wrapping another bandage around his ribs.

Eliot doesn't say anything so she has to guess how tight. She can redo it in the morning if necessary.

“Anywhere else?” Parker asks, checking him over.

“No,” Eliot says.

He seems to be telling the truth this time. “Painkillers,” Parker says.

“No,” he repeats.

“You're cut and bruised and maybe have cracked ribs. Painkillers.” She sets out a few bottles and pours a glass of water.

It takes Eliot a long time to choose which pills. Parker hops onto the counter to wait, swinging her feet.

“Hungry?” she asks, when he's swallowed them.

“I'm fine,” Eliot says, in the same weird flat way as before. He stands up.

Parker jumps down. She stares into Eliot's eyes. He looks away almost at once. “It's okay,” she says. It's okay to be hurt and need help. It's okay to make mistakes.

After a long minute, Eliot sighs. He sounds so tired. Maybe that's why he isn't growling.

“Let's go to bed,” Parker says. The hospital took hours and it's already evening.

“I'll sleep on the couch,” Eliot says.

She takes his hand. Eliot looks down at their hands and then up at her. “Come on,” Parker says and leads him into the bedroom.

~

He rehearses what to tell them, how to explain, while lying awake. But in the end, he just walks out the door in the middle of the night without saying anything. They deserve better. Of course they do. But Eliot wouldn't be able to leave if they asked him to stay, no matter how much he should go.

He drives to the airport, swaps his truck for a similar one in long-term parking. The theft is smooth and easy because Parker once showed Eliot the manufacturer's starting sequence for this model. No hot-wiring required.

It isn't the ebbing painkillers making the world feel foggy and distant as he drives. The darkness is only enhanced by the bright headlights and scattered billboards, not banished by them. His eyes burn no matter which he looks at: the darkness or the light.

Finally, as the sun rises, Eliot pulls over.

_Straps holding him. Sharp stabs into his arms, bright lights in his eyes. He can't breathe, can't scream. The weight of the drugs dragging him down._

He wakes up, ribs aching, trapped. After a frantic moment, Eliot realizes he forgot to undo his seatbelt before he passed out, two whole hours ago. He climbs out of the truck, stumbling on his numb feet. An incautiously deep breath has him leaning hard against the cab door. He fights off the urge to cough.

Before he gets back on the road, Eliot makes three phone calls on the burner phone from his bag.

~

“Alec, wake up.”

Alec wakes up. The overhead light stabs him in the face and he promptly closes his eyes again.

“Alec.” Parker, using his first name. Alec squints against the glare.

“Eliot's gone.”

She sounds really upset. Alec starts to sit up. Sharp pain makes him yelp. He slumps back down. Right, he got hurt yesterday.

Parker leans over him, anxious.

“It's okay. Just moved wrong,” Alec croaks, then clears his throat. “What do you mean, Eliot's gone?”

“He isn't here. I heard him last night but I thought he was just.... up.”

Alec nods.

She adds, “He was hurt too.”

He was? “But—” Alec starts.

Parker cuts him off impatiently. “Hospitals.”

“Yeah,” Alec says. Eliot doesn't do hospitals for himself. “But maybe he's just out. I swear he forgets his phone on purpose.”

“He took his go bag.”

“ _What?_ ” Alec half-sits up, forgetting about his wound in his surprise. Parker grabs his shoulders to keep him from moving too far.

“Why would he leave?” Alec asks, letting her push him back so he's lying down again.

“He was weird yesterday. Did they hit him in the head during the fight?” Parker asks.

“Not that I saw,” Alec says. “Let me get up, I'll find him.” His brain is already whirring with the possibilities.

Parker shakes her head. “You have to rest.”

“I can rest just as well in a chair as in bed,” Alec argues.

Parker crosses her arms, standing firm. She might have a point. Sitting up _did_ hurt.

“Fine. Bring me a tablet? I'll stay here.”

She does, but the angle is all wrong. Alec gives up on the tablet after a few minutes and types on one of his smartphones instead.

“Maybe he knows who killed that body. Maybe it's part of a bigger thing,” Parker says. She's hovering nearby.

“Maybe,” Alec agrees. “I'll try to figure out who they are.”

Parker continues, “Or if there was some kind of threat we don't know about. That might explain why he's having nightmares lately. Blackmail or something about us.”

“Wouldn't we be less safe without him then?” Alec wonders out loud.

“He shouldn't have left,” Parker says. Out of the corner of his eye, Alec can see she's pacing now.

“Can't argue with that.”

~

Hours later, and Alec's no closer to any kind of answers. No facial recognition hits on the bad guys from yesterday and Eliot must be using cash because he isn't showing up anywhere either. Yet. It's only a matter of time before he needs to use some kind of technology and then Alec _will_ find him.

Parker's phone rings. She looks at the caller ID. “Amy,” she answers the phone, putting it on speaker.

“Um, Parker?” Amy asks.

“Hardison's here too,” Parker says.

“Oh, hi. Are you guys... upstairs?”

“Why?” Parker asks, eyes narrowing.

“Because there's a woman here to see you—both of you—and she says Chef... I mean, Eliot, sent her. And I'm supposed to tell you Sanchez is freaking out because apparently he's in charge of the kitchen now and he says he can't handle the pressure.”

There is a muffled shout in the background and Amy calls, “It's the same thing!” In a quieter voice, she says, “Correction, Sanchez says he can handle the kitchen itself, but he's having a crisis about 'stepping into Chef's shoes', whatever that means. Are you going to tell me what's going on?”

“Once we figure it out, you'll be the first to know,” Alec says.

“Do you know the woman?” Parker asks.

“Never seen her before in my life. Her name is Audrey Zhuang,” Amy says.

The name isn't familiar to Alec. Parker shakes her head when he glances at her. “Tell her we'll be a few minutes,” Alec says. He'll do a quick background check on Audrey with footage from the brewpub's security cameras.

“Okay. She'll be in your client booth,” Amy says.

“Thanks,” Alec says and Parker hangs up.

“If she's a client, she'll have to wait,” Parker says. “I don't want to do a job without Eliot.”

~

“Are you sure I can't get you anything?” the cute waitress asks.

Audrey smiles. “I'm fine, thank you.” She's too tense to eat right now. She _hates_ interviews. Especially when it's other criminals doing the interviewing. If they ask her to do a demonstration, she's going to leave.

The waitress moves away and Audrey goes back to playing with her leather keychain. Marie, one of her mom's friends who does traditional Métis beading, made it for her. The contrast in texture between the smooth beaded side and the soft suede side is comforting.

She could really use the money. A demonstration wouldn't be too bad, maybe, this time. They know she's Eliot's recommendation after all. It's not like they're going to make her shoot anything.

Audrey sees movement out of the corner of her eye and looks up. There's a blonde white woman standing right beside her, too close. Audrey drops her keychain and grabs the edge of the table so she doesn't accidentally lash out.

“Why are you here?” the woman asks.

Audrey lets go of the table. “This is where the waitress told me to wait,” she says. Is this a test?

A tall black man joins the woman. “Hi, you're in the right place,” he says, sliding into the booth across from Audrey. He winces while he does it. The woman sits down beside him.

“I'm Alec Hardison and this is Parker,” the man says. He smiles but doesn't offer to shake hands.

“Audrey Zhuang,” Audrey says.

“Why are you here?” Parker asks again.

“Eliot called me this morning, said I should come by,” Audrey says, cautiously.

Parker leans forward. “Did he say where he was?”

“No. He didn't say much.” The connection quality was terrible so Eliot had to repeat himself a few times but the whole duration of their conversation was still under two minutes.

“How do you know him?” Alec asks.

“He was in the army with my dad back in the day. But I didn't know about... him being a hitter until I started doing jobs myself.”

They glance at each other. Parker asks Audrey, “What kind of jobs?”

This is more of the kind of question she expected. Audrey outlines a few of the jobs she's done: mostly backup for thieves with some dubious body guard work thrown in. “But, um, I don't do guns,” she finishes awkwardly. “So that's how I found out about Eliot, from people talking about him because he doesn't either. Anymore.”

They nod in unison. “What _do_ you do?” Parker asks, like she genuinely wants to know.

“I used to compete nationally for karate, so mostly I kick people,” Audrey says bluntly.

“Cool.” Parker smiles for the first time.

“So, I know we keep asking this but we really still don't know why you're here,” Alec says, wincing as he shifts position. She wonders if he's hurt somehow.

“I need money.” That is not what Audrey meant to say so she continues, “I want to go to medical school but I also need it to help my family.”

They both just keep looking at her. She tries to explain better. “My dad's on disability but since he doesn't live here in America anymore, he doesn't get much. Mom and I have been working on his citizenship application but...” She gestures in frustration. “He obviously wants to have dual citizenship and the laws are a lot tougher now, especially for ex-military.” Also especially for people on disability.

“Dual citizenship with which country?” Alec asks.

“Canada,” Audrey says. “My mom's first-generation Canadian. I have dual citizenship.” Most people assume she means she has dual citizenship in _China_ and Canada or America, but China doesn't allow dual citizenship at all.

“Oh, right, you don't get citizenship automatically marrying a Canadian,” Alec says.

Audrey nods.

“Okay, so Eliot sent you to get money from us?” Parker asks abruptly.

“Not from _you_ ,” Audrey says, startled. “From... bad people? He sent me to interview to be your hitter.”

They both stare at her.

“Because he isn't doing it anymore?” Audrey says it like a question but she should have figured this out earlier when Parker asked if she knew where Eliot was. “Did he not tell you that?”

“He isn't doing it anymore,” Alec repeats. He looks totally gutted.

Oh no. This is terrible. Audrey doesn't know what to say.

Parker doesn't have any expression on her face. “No,” she says.

Alec looks at her and reaches out his hand.

“This isn't how it goes,” Parker says, ignoring him. “We don't end like this.”

Audrey's racing mind finally latches onto something useful to say. “I have his number, if you want to call him,” she says, pulling her phone out of her bag.

Alec lets out a long breath. “Yeah,” he says faintly. “Thanks.”

Audrey writes Eliot's number on a napkin, and then hers underneath. It's a dumb gesture. There is obviously more going on here than she thought. Then again, this isn't the _worst_ interview she's ever had so it only makes sense to leave the door open.

Parker takes the napkin, then hesitates. “You can eat,” she says. “If you want anything.”

Audrey blinks. “Thanks.”

Parker stands up. Alec gets up awkwardly, holding his stomach. Parker pulls his free arm over her shoulder. They go through the back door together.

The cute waitress comes back. “I heard a bit of that,” she confesses. She pulls out her notepad. “What can I get for you?”

~

Eliot parks the truck and just sits there for a moment. His ribs are throbbing from sitting up driving all day. What he should do is go find a motel that will take cash and at least lie horizontal for a few hours. Even if he can't sleep, that would help. He should also take something for the pain. And eat something other than protein bars from his go bag.

He should do a lot of things he isn't going to do.

Eliot gets out of the truck. It's trickier than it should be. His eyes feel like he's rubbed sand into them. He staggers across the parking lot and into the coffee shop.

Cha0s is there already. Eliot called him this morning. He can't really remember the conversation but his threats must have been convincing enough to get Cha0s to actually show up. He hopes he didn't get mixed up and threaten Audrey and Sanchez too.

“Wow, you look like shit,” Cha0s greets Eliot, leaning back in his chair.

“I need to hide from Hardison,” Eliot says without preamble as he sits down opposite Cha0s.

Cha0s laughs in delight. “Are you—did the almighty Leverage team actually break up? Why is this the first I'm hearing about it?”

Eliot grimaces. It _is_ a break up, in more ways than one. He's been trying not to think about that. “Do you want the job or not?”

“Not sure you can afford me.”

“I can pay.”

“Oh, I know you have _money_ ,” Cha0s says, waving his hand, “And don't worry, I _will_ overcharge you.”

“What then?” Eliot is so tired.

“I'm on good terms with your team—oh sorry, _former_ team.” He doesn't sound sorry at all. “How are you going to compensate me for the loss of their friendship?”

Any other day Eliot would have laughed at that. “They aren't your friends,” he says flatly.

“Be nicer to me or I won't help you at all,” Cha0s says, grinning.

Eliot's jaw clenches. He stands up.

Cha0s laughs. “Who else can you go to? I'm the only one who can beat Hardison.”

“You can't,” Eliot says. Nobody is as good as Hardison. He's an idiot for even bothering to meet with Cha0s.

Cha0s surges to his feet. “I can too! I have before!”

Eliot turns and walks out of the coffee shop, ignoring Cha0s' continuing rant. His head is pounding.

~

About fifteen minutes after they left Eliot voicemails and Alec tracked his phone to Los Angeles, Alec's phone rings. His heart leaps but then sinks back down when he checks the caller ID. “Why are you calling me?” he asks because greetings are wasted on people like Cha0s.

“Well fuck you too,” Cha0s says, cheerfully. “I happen to have information that you are going to want.”

Alec waits. Cha0s doesn't continue. “Am I supposed to guess?” he finally asks.

“I'll tell you if you agree you'll owe me a favour.”

“No way,” Alec says. “Tell me or don't. I'm busy.”

“Busy searching for a certain hitter?” Cha0s asks. Alec can hear his stupid grin through the phone.

“If you did anything to him, I swear—”

“He's in bad shape but I'm pretty sure that's all _your_ fault.”

Alec winces. Driving fifteen hours from Portland to Los Angeles on probably no sleep has more to do with Eliot looking terrible than Alec does but it still hits home.

Cha0s keeps talking. “So did Leverage really break up? Is Parker available? Cause I know some great crews who would just love to have—”

Alec cuts him off. “We aren't broken up.” Across the room, Parker looks up from her planning notebook. She's been very Mastermind about the whole thing and it's kind of freaking Alec out. All three of them are going to have long emotional talks later. It has the potential to be a horrible disaster. He's trying to wait until actually talking to Eliot to have feelings about all of this but it isn't really working.

Anyway, Alec is having the shittiest day he's had in a _while_ , even including yesterday when he got fourteen stitches. He has zero patience for Cha0s. “So, do you have any actual information about my boyfriend or are you just being an asshole for fun?” Alec asks, talking over Cha0s' next jibe.

“Your _what_?” Cha0s asks, shocked. “Did you and Parker break up?”

“No.” It's kind of hilarious that Cha0s didn't know about their relationship. They haven't been trying to hide it. Alec could describe the relationship statuses of dozens of thieves off the top of his head. It's important information. Plus Alec just likes being in the know.

Cha0s makes a weird strangled noise.

“Yeah, I really don't have time for your homophobia right now,” Alec says. Parker comes over and gestures for him to give her the phone. Alec shakes his head. She doesn't need to hear whatever cruel thing Cha0s is about to say.

Actually, Alec doesn't need to hear it either. He ends the call.

“Who was it?” Parker asks.

“Cha0s. He says he saw Eliot.”

Her face hardens. “Then he really is trying to hide from us.”

“He's doing a terrible job if he is,” Alec says, trying to sound light-hearted. “Are you ready to go?”

~

Eliot glances at the clock and realizes he's been lying in this motel room for four hours. It feels like it's been five minutes so he must have slept without realizing it. At least he didn't have a nightmare.

Though, really, being awake is kind of like a nightmare. What the hell is he going to do now?

Eliot sits up, ribs protesting, and rubs his face. He needs a shower. And probably food too, though he isn't hungry at all.

He notices his phone sitting on the nightstand. There's something he's forgotten... something important. He picks up the phone, as if holding it will help him remember, and automatically flips it open. It's just a burner phone, from his go bag.

There are two missed calls from blocked numbers. Two voicemail notifications.

Only the three people he called this morning would have this number. Eliot types in the voicemail passcode.

“Hey, El.” Hardison's voice startles Eliot so badly he almost drops the phone. His heart starts pounding.

The recording continues, “We, uh, got this number from Audrey. Which was... _super_ awkward, in case you were wondering.” He pauses for a moment. “So. Obviously, we're coming to find you because we need to talk. Like, really talk. Because I don't know what the hell is going on but. Yeah.”

Hardison takes a deep breath and Eliot copies him, wincing from the ache in his ribs. “If you need a vacation or need some space, you could just tell us, couldn't you?” Hardison asks. “You don't have to do _this_. This is... weird. Okay, uh, call me back. I... yeah, talk to you soon.” The voicemail ends.

Eliot selects the other voicemail, breathing too fast. There's a long pause. Eliot closes his eyes. “You took your go bag,” Parker says. “I woke up and you were gone and we're going to find you so at least, you can say goodbye to us.” She pauses again. “I don't want to say goodbye to you,” she says softly, and hangs up.

Eliot slowly lowers the phone. He stares at the wall, heart pounding. That's what he forgot: to get rid of the burner phone. Mistakes like this are the reason he left. It's too dangerous for Eliot to be with them when he can't rely on himself.

He plays both voicemails again. They hurt the second time even more than the first.

He's in the middle of the fourth repetition when there's a knock at the door.

~

Parker counts silently to five, then knocks on the door to Eliot's motel room again. Beside her, Hardison shifts his stance. He's nervous.

Eliot opens the door as she raises her hand to knock a third time. He looks absolutely awful, with huge dark circles under his eyes. He takes a half step back when he sees them and doesn't say anything.

“Hey,” Hardison says, into the awkward silence.

Eliot just stands there.

All at once, anger floods into Parker like a wave, pushing all her other complicated emotions aside. It's a relief to feel something she understands. “Why?” she demands.

Eliot leans back a little, like her question pushed him. He starts to say something but stops, staring at her.

“Okay, yeah, we should do this inside,” Hardison says, moving forward. Eliot steps back again so they can come in.

It's a plain, cheap-looking room. Eliot's go bag is on the floor beside the bed. Seeing it makes Parker angrier. They'd made their go bags together.

Eliot closes the door and leans against it, not like he's blocking them in but like he's having trouble standing up. “I can't do it anymore,” he says. He sounds even more tired than he looks, which shouldn't be possible.

“Do what?” Hardison asks.

“Be good enough.”

Parker glares at Eliot. He isn't making sense. “Of course you're good enough,” she says impatiently, “You're the best.”

He lets out a long breath and winces, touching his side. “No.”

“You didn't even tell me you got hurt too,” Hardison says. “You didn't talk to me at all.”

Eliot winces again. “Sorry,” he says.

“I'd say 'it's okay' but it really isn't. Why couldn't you talk to us before just leaving like that?”

Before they got here, Parker tried to figure out how to do this. She wasted pages and pages writing out plans and strategies. Now that they're all together again, all she can think is how much this _hurts_. It's starting to feel like the end for real.

Eliot shakes his head. “I shouldn't have but talking wouldn't have changed anything.”

“At least we would have known why you were leaving,” Hardison snaps, “And we wouldn't have woken up to you _gone_ like that. I've been hurt before, y'know. It isn't the end of the world.”

“You shouldn't have gotten hurt at all,” Eliot says, with more heat to his voice than before. If they're all going to be angry, this room isn't going to be big enough. “I should've been there faster.”

“But I'm still gonna be okay,” Hardison insists.

“This time,” Eliot says.

“Stop!” Parker yells.

They both turn to her, synchronized, and somehow that hurts too. “We aren't just a team,” she says.

She takes a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. They wait, watching her. “We're together,” she finally says, “We'll change together. Not apart.”

“You'd be better off without me,” Eliot says softly.

“No,” Parker and Hardison say at the same time.

“Even if we never did another job together, we would still need you,” Hardison continues.

Eliot looks back and forth between them, his eyes searching. Parker has no idea what her face is doing so she nods to show Eliot she agrees with Hardison.

“Do... you want to be with us?” Hardison asks.

“Yes, of course,” Eliot says immediately.

“Then come home,” Parker says.

Eliot hesitates and then nods.

Hardison lets out a long sigh. “Okay, good,” he says. “We can fly home tomorrow, since it's the middle of the night. Unless you really want to bring that truck back, though, I don't think—”

Eliot cuts him off by stepping forward and kissing him. He cups Hardison's face gently with his hand. Hardison kisses him back.

When the kiss is over, Eliot presses his forehead to Hardison's for a moment. “Sorry,” he says.

“It's okay,” Hardison says softly.

Eliot glances over at Parker. “Sorry,” he says again.

She answers him with a kiss. Showing love makes more sense than talking about it, always. She wraps her arms around both Eliot and Hardison, keeping them all together.

~

Eliot lies down. Beside him, Hardison shifts closer. “Let me know if I'm hurting you,” he murmurs.

“It's the other side that's hurt,” Eliot whispers back. Parker bandaged him up again earlier and he took some painkillers so this is probably the best his ribs have felt since he was injured.

“Still,” Hardison says, yawning.

Parker climbs into the other side of the bed. “Goodnight,” she says.

“Goodnight,” Eliot and Hardison say at the same time.

Eliot stares at the dark ceiling. It's a much nicer room than the one at the motel where they found him. He misses the stars on their ceiling at home.

He closes his eyes. Sleep will be a struggle, it always is. But he's willing to lie here with his partners and try.


End file.
